I have been called to serve as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Brazil Vitória Mission from October 2014 - April 2016.

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

PALMADA O DESTINO NA CARA!

SLAP DESTINY IN THE FACE! Haha I don't know
why but that has suddenly become our district's motto. One day during study
time, we lost our focus and we were talking about Hot Rod and other silly
movies and that quote came up so we tried to translate it and wrote it on the
board. Haha Irma Nielson saw it and corrected it and she could not stop
laughing.

Anyways, oi familia e amigos!!!!! Tudo bem?
Tudo bem!!

Aaahhh I love and miss all of you so so much!
I was doing so well and I hadn't even had that much time to miss anyone yet but
today I've had too much free time and I was so excited to read and write emails
so I've finally started to realize how long it'll be until I see you all again!
(But at least I have my weekly email time, and some of you have been wonderful
and have already written me dear elders! Dear Elder is the best and you should
all use it to write me letters!)

So this has already been the best experience
ever!! The MTC is amazing! It is a holy place! I have never been so happy in my
entire life! I love the schedule, I love the food, I love the people, I love
missionaries, I love my district, I love my teachers and investigators! I love
everything about this place! Even going to bed early and waking up early! Even
though I'm usually a night owl and I have never been a morning person at all,
every morning I have woken up a minute or two before my alarm and just waited
for it to go off so I can start the day! It's crazy!

Oh and Portuguese is awesome! It gets a little
confusing, especially with pronunciation. But I can understand like everything
my teacher and our investigator are saying thanks to all my knowledge of
Spanish (which even though I like to think I'm fluent, I'm seriously so not
haha). It's just when it comes time for me to speak, I kinda just freeze. I'm
just held back because I'm afraid of pronouncing things wrong or saying the
wrong word or saying it in Spanish accidentally....So I've gotta really learn
to let the Spirit guide and just trust that my tongue will be loosed! Oh, but I
already memorized nosso proposito, James 1:5, part of the first vision, and
some of my testimony! And we have to say all of our prayers in Portuguese now
so at least I'm improving on that every time!

Minha companheira and I have
definitely figured out that it's always the little things that make us the
happiest! Like when they have snickerdoodles in the cafeteria (oh and when they
had strawberry sundae crunch ice cream! my fave!) or we successfully memorize
or understand or learn something new in Portuguese. I love it here and I love
depending so much on the Savior and the Holy Ghost. This has been the best week
of my life!

Sorry I'm running out of time because I tried
to send so many pictures but I took at least one every day so that should give
you a good idea of what's going down here at the MTC!

Oh and Irma Nielson (our teacher) said
something yesterday in class that I loved! She said that our missions are not
just a time to pass the time, but that they are an investment of time. I know
that that is true and I am so glad that I made the decision to invest my time
and to preach this gospel!

I love you all!!

Love,

Sister Alia Earls

Oh p.s. sorry if my English is horrible
because Sister Richards and I realized the other day that we can't speak in
English anymore even though we've barely started learning Portugues. Oh and
sorry if anything is spelled wrong in Portuguese because it's only my first
week and I don't know how to type any accents haha